The BBA Announces Their Hall of Fame Selection

Today, two days before the official Hall of Fame announcement from the BBWAA, the Baseball Bloggers Alliance announced their Hall of Fame selections. The BBA, made up of approximately 300 baseball blogs from around the internetsphere, of which this website is a member, follows the same 75% rule that the BBWAA does, though their ballots are not limited to ten players.

With so much bickering, hate balloting, and general unpleasantness from the actual voting bloc, one that may very well not elect a single soul on Wednesday, can the assumed to be younger and more stat-friendly vote differently:

Well, only one guy is getting in: Jeff Bagwell with 76% of the vote.

Here’s how the rest of the voting broke down:

Jeff Bagwell 76%

Craig Biggo 69%

Mike Piazza 69%

Barry Bonds 62%

Tim Raines 62%

Roger Clemens 56%

Edgar Martinez 41%

Alan Trammell 40%

Mark McGwire 35%

Curt Schilling 34%

Dale Murphy 32%

Larry Walker 32%

Jack Morris 32%

Lee Smith 25%

Kenny Lofton 21%

Sammy Sosa 21%

Don Mattingly 18%

Fred McGriff 15%

Rafael Palmerio 15%

Bernie Williams 4%

David Wells 4%

Sandy Alomar 3%

Julio Franco 1%

And while I fully support the election of Jeff Bagwell, after all I’ve grown tired of the steroids witch hunt, it would take a miracle for him to be selected by the official electorate. I’m also shocked at the lack of support that Mike Piazza, Tim Raines, and Craig Biggio got (with only Biggio having a reasonable chance of being selected by the BBWAA). At least Jack Morris’ mustache doesn’t hold sway with this group, however,

Here is what my ballot looked like, going eleven players deep (with my apologies to the Murphy family):

Jeff Bagwell

Tim Raines

Edgar Martinez

Alan Trammell

Barry Bonds

Mark McGwire

Mike Piazza

Curt Schilling

Larry Walker

Craig Biggio

Roger Clemens

And while I’m not exactly thrilled with voting for McGwire, Clemens, or Bonds, the fact of the matter is that their numbers put them at the top echelon of players in the history of the game and they were multiple times better than their contemporaries who may or may not have been using steroids. I just can’t imagine a Hall of Fame with the best players from a 20 year period not being included simply because they were caught and look more like steroid users than the Alex Sanchezes of the world.

Add in the financial straits the Hall is currently in and something needs to be done. Otherwise the Hall could soon find itself as a beautiful relic, representing a sport that seemingly stopped being played in 1996.